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Case file s201 · Music and sport · 1955
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1955
Charlie Parker: Portrait of Charlie Parker in 1947
Charlie Parker. William P. Gottlieb. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
12 March 1955
Place
New York · United States
Field
jazz · Music on the timeline
Legal tradition
US common law (New York, Missouri) · Common law
Historical event
Bebop; segregated burial in Kansas City
Religion
Charlie Parker: Atheist and agnostic, Catholic (recorded as Catholicism on Wikidata; 20th-century atheists, African-American atheists, American atheists on Wikipedia)
Music and sportBodies, bones and burialsPostwarNorth AmericaUnited States

Charlie Parker's wife, his partner and his mother fought over his body, and he was buried where he asked not to be

Charlie Parker died at 34 in the New York hotel suite of jazz patron Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter†. He had separated from his legal wife, Doris, in 1950 and lived with Chan Parker, to whom he was never married. Chan said he had told her not to bury him in Kansas City and wanted a quiet New York burial, near their daughter on Long Island. Doris, as legal widow, contested Chan's right to decide. Parker's mother, Addie, wanted him home. A committee of friends claimed the body at the funeral home and sent it to Missouri to meet her wishes. Accounts differ on whether the body went straight to Missouri or was first moved between locations. Dizzy Gillespie reportedly paid for the funeral. Parker was an atheist; the funeral was Christian, which upset Chan. He was buried in Lincoln Cemetery, a segregated cemetery in Kansas City, over Chan's objection. In 2026 he remains there.

What the law took from it

An unmarried partner has no legal say over the body, so a written funeral directive is the only protection for a couple that never married.

Sources
  1. Internet ArchiveGovernment record
  2. findagrave.comPress
  3. ffrf.orgPress
  4. grunge.comPress

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “Charlie Parker's wife, his partner and his mother fought over his body, and he was buried where he asked not to be,” story s201, https://www.celebrity.estate/charlie-parker-1955, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

Music and sportBodies, bones and burialsPostwarNorth AmericaCommon lawUnited States